Conserving America's National Parks (Paperback)

Conserving America's National Parks shares the status of conservation challenges and successes in America's 408 national parks. Rising sea levels, collapses of coral reefs, loss of wildlife species, droughts, severe fires, non-native species, and climate change are among the many challenges defining contemporary conservation at the 100-year centennial of the National Park Service in 2016. However, thrilling outcomes of active conservation projects, such as the largest removal of river dams in U.S. history, provide hope for the future of parks. Written for readers with diverse backgrounds, Conserving America's National Parks is richly illustrated with 247 photos, maps, and sketches and supported by over 350 scientific literature citations. Conserving America's National Parks is unprecedented in its scope of conservation stories unfolding in America's national parks. Further information, including additional examples of the book's graphics and the author's contact information for discounts and bulk orders, is available on the book's website: https://sites.google.com/site/conservingnationalparks/

Scott Abella has a B.S. in Natural Resources Management and an Environmental Chemistry minor from Grand Valley State University, a M.S. in Forest Resources from Clemson University, and a Ph.D. in Forest Science with an emphasis in Restoration Ecology from Northern Arizona University. Since 2004, he has been qualified as a wildland firefighter. He has conducted research and conservation projects across the United States in eastern forests, Midwestern prairies and oak savannas, western forests, and southwestern arid lands. He has worked in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Saguaro National Park, Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Death Valley National Park, Mojave National Preserve, Joshua Tree National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, and Pecos National Historical Park. In 2012 and 2013, he worked with the Biological Resource Management Division of the Washington, D.C., office of the National Park Service. He is currently on the faculty of the School of Life Sciences, University of Nevada Las Vegas. He also owns Natural Resource Conservation LLC, an international company dedicated to providing applied science supporting conservation actions. Work for this book brought him to see conservation projects in familiar and less-familiar parks of Olympic, Crater Lake, Grand Canyon, Joshua Tree, Wupatki, Klondike Gold Rush, and many others.